Source: Thestar.com.MYBy Isabelle Lai [Opinion\When we are promised that enforcement action will be taken to tackle wildlife crime, we deserve to know what’s really going on instead of being fed a non-answer. Without a doubt, one of the top 10 favourite words bandied around by the authorities is “enforcement”. I can see why it is so favoured. Doesn’t it convey reassuring confidence that the full might of the law is going to come down hard on wrongdoers? But enforcement is a much more meaningful word than that. It speaks of concrete action being taken to stop the spread of something which is bad or wrong. When we are promised that enforcement action will be taken, I think we deserve to know what’s really going on instead of being fed a non-answer – which is to say, a nice, polite, reassuring answer that really doesn’t answer any of our questions. Fresh in the public’s mind is illegal wildlife trade kingpin Anson Wong, whether he is really back in business and what the authorities are doing about it. Burning questions have arisen in the wake of Al-Jazeera’s 101 East’s The Return of the Lizard King documentary, which provides substantial evidence that he might just have returned to his old habits. Wong’s house was shown to have an enclosure housing African Serval cats, while the worker at Rona Wildlife, a shop lot housing exotic wildlife, named him as his boss. What was the Department of Wildlife and National Parks’ (Perhilitan) reply? More....

Source: Ipsnews.netBy Cam McGrathAt a small pet shop in an upscale Cairo neighbourhood, puppies, kittens and sickly-looking parakeets occupy the cages behind the storefront window. But if you want more exciting and exotic animals – such as crocodiles or lion cubs – just ask behind the counter. Trade in wild animals is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), of which Egypt is a signatory. But decades of ineffective border controls and police indifference have made the country a major hub for the trafficking of wildlife. Conservationists suspect that criminal gangs have expanded their networks and stepped up shipments of protected and endangered species under cover of the political turmoil that has engulfed the region since the start of the Arab Spring. “Since the revolution in 2011, Egypt has fewer resources for enforcement, and traffickers have recognised this,” an environment ministry official told IPS. “The country is facing many serious political and economic problems, and checking shipments for wildlife is not a priority.”Cairo is less a destination than a transit point for animals trafficked from Africa to markets in Asia and the Arab Gulf states. Rare and endangered animals are concealed in air and sea shipments, or smuggled overland through the porous borders of Libya and Sudan. In recent years, authorities have seized satchels full of dying tortoises, rare birds stuffed into toilet paper rolls with their beaks tied shut, and a pair of dolphins floundering in a murky swimming pool. Foreign customs officers have also discovered baby chimpanzees drugged with cough syrup and crammed into crates shipped from Egypt. Many of the trafficked animals are kept in rented apartments in Cairo and Alexandria that act as showrooms for prospective buyers. Others fill the overcrowded and dirty cages of disreputable pet shops, or end up in the country’s growing number of private zoos. One licensed pet store in Cairo’s Zamalek district had its front end geared for the pampered pets of the district’s affluent residents, with imported pet foods, rhinestone studded dog collars, and colourful catnip toys. Further back the shop catered to more exotic tastes, with pens of juvenile crocodiles, caged fennec foxes, and a full-grown vulture that was eventually sold to a local businessman for 1,200 dollars. The pet store was shuttered last year after municipal authorities acted on residents’ complaints. More....

Source: Standard.co.ukBy Justin Davenport The shocking scale of wildlife crime in London ranging from the trapping of songbirds to trading in illicit ivory is revealed in a new report today. A charity which works with the Met’s Wildlife Crime Unit has produced the first detailed picture of crimes against animals in the capital.The World Society for the Protection of Animals, which part funds the unit, says wildlife crime now ranks among trafficking in drugs, arms and humans in terms of profits. The global illegal wildlife trade is estimated to be £12 billion a year.In London, the charity says it has evidence of organised crime gangs smuggling endangered species into the UK while exotic animals are often rescued after being abandoned by owners.The Met’s wildlife crime unit has seized more than 30,000 items from endangered species since 1995 and deals daily with reports ranging from destruction of habitats to deliberate cruelty to animals.The WSPA study, entitled The Victims of Wildlife Crime, reveals crimes in London including: Small songbirds caught illegally for sale by leaving glue traps in gardens.Badgers being illegally shot, snared, poisoned, baited and their setts damaged in railway embankments and overland sections of the Tube. Foxes being shot at with airguns or deliberately poisoned.A haul of illegal ivory seized from a Portobello Road trader.The discovery of two West Africa dwarf crocodiles in cramped tanks in a flat in Croydon. More....

Source: Theecologist.orgBy Verity LargoPoaching is no longer about one man and a bow and arrow: it is a huge business, akin to international networks, sprawling across continents. From baby cheetahs, 'medicinal' rhino horn to carved elephant tusks, poaching is identified as a major threat to global stability, the environment. "Most days I'm bouncing around on bad roads for hours, I've lost count of the punctures." Helen O'Neill lifts out her two rocks that are wedging the back wheels stationary, plops them in the car, takes out the jack, and fixes on the newly punctured tyre to the tailgate of the jeep. Helen's morning commute must rank as one of the most splendid in the world. At 6.20am, after a quick boiled kettle wash in a bowl, a coffee, she drives off into the 2200 sq km area of the North Serengeti that she surveys, as part of the Cheetah Project. We're out looking for cheetahs with the Serengeti Cheetah Project. The main remit is to compile basic information about their habits and movements, across a long period of time. We've been driving for four hours, past numerous delighted tourists ogling bucking wilderbeest, startled zebra, colobus monkey, hartebeest, dik diks, oryx, rindebuck, lions and even a leopard. The cheetah project works in collaboration with Serengeti National Parks, and Tanzanian Wildlife Research institute, the most famous, and oldest cheetah project in the world. Helen isn't comfortable commenting on poaching. The conservation world in East Africa is highly political, and people must tread carefully: their visas and ability to keep working in a focussed area rest on not being too critical of East African governments. The tourist industry needs live elephants, not slaughtered carcasses that are funding arms to bomb shopping malls. Poaching is literally the elephant in the room. It's everywhere and massively on the rise. Al Jazeera says sixty elephants a day are killed in Tanzania. Recently the East African Wildlife Society commented:"The data collected over the last 24 months shows a massive escalation in the rate of illegal killing of elephants. The situation is now so bad that by most measures it can be considered out of control and certainly beyond the limits of what elephant populations can sustain."More....

In other jobs, this would be metaphorical. Not for Mr Al Baloushi. The carnivore keeper at Al Ain Zoo spends his days with lions, Bengal tigers, jaguars, cheetahs, pumas, servals and a pair of sibling white tigers named Sugar and Spice.“This is for today,” says the Emirati, opening an enormous double-door fridge loaded with camel meat. He walks to a freezer filled with metal buckets of frozen bones, blood and camel flesh. “These are enrichment for the lions. We hang them.”Bloody ice cubes suspended in lion cages are not just nutritious, they give the lions the chance to play, too.Even after the reopening of Al Ain Zoo’s five Big Cat exhibitions at Eid Al Adha, the carnivores Mr Al Baloushi cares for face a challenge – the zoo is full. There are 25 lions, 10 pumas, nine servals, seven cheetahs, four jaguars and three Bengal tigers. There is no room for any more cats.The Al Ain Zoo faces an unusual dilemma of an oversupply of lion donations from private owners.UAE legislation forbids the sale of any animal on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) list without government permits. Even so, cheetah and lion cubs make popular pets and serve as status symbols. When cuddly cubs grow into instinctual killers, people turn to the zoo.“When they start getting bigger they start showing their genetics, they show that they’re a carnivore, so at this age they start to get rid of them” said Myyas Al Qarqaz, the animal-collection manager. More....

Zimbabwe’s top Olympian Kirsty Coventry has partnered with the Tikki Hywood Trust as an ambassador for Africa’s relatively unknown species, such as the pangolin, bat-eared fox, and serval.

Known affectionately as “Zimbabwe’s Golden Girl“, Coventry says that as a swimmer from a small landlocked African country who seemingly came out of nowhere to win gold, silver and bronze Olympic medals, she can relate to being the “underdog”. “I know the amount of work it takes to get your voice heard and because of that I want to help the little guy, I want to help the ones that are often overlooked.” Lisa Hywood, founder of the Tikki Hywood Trust, told Annamiticus that when Coventry came out to the Trust to see the work that is being done, she became very interested in helping raise awareness about the unique African species which are often overlooked. “Kirsty is one of Zimbabwe’s iconic athletes who identifies with the underdog, having come from a similar position herself in her sporting career. When she learned about the Tikki Hywood Trust and the animals we were working with such as the pangolin, bat-eared fox and other such unknown animals, she was very interested to be able to bring some light to their plight.”Hywood added that when the Olympic medalist met “Naia” (which means “water sprite”), a young Cape clawless otter rescued by the Tikki Hywood Trust, she fell “totally in love”. Coventry’s first project with THT is to help rehabilitate Naia, who was found so badly injured that her hind legs were paralyzed. Fortunately, Naia is expected to make a full recovery. More....

Although widely distributed south of the Sahara, the serval became extinct in the Cape provinces of South Africa over the last century mainly due to habitat loss, hunting and poaching. Recently however private game reserves in the Eastern Cape have begun re-introducing the species in the hopes of contributing to the eventual re-establishment of these wild cats in the region.

The serval is one of ten indigenous wild cats found in Africa. Only three other small wild cats are found in South Africa, namely the caracal, African wild cat, and the black-footed cat. The other three species, the sand cat, golden cat and jungle cat are found in limited areas in north and central Africa. The remaining big cats of Africa, lion, leopard and cheetah, receive much more attention than their smaller cousins.